Thursday, April 16, 2009

Wolf Games (a three for Thursdays)

Wolf complained last week that there was no Three for Thursday post, so in his honor... Wolf Games...

Wolf and I have been friends for many years now, we first met when I was playing the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz, but didn't really get to know each other until one night a few years back when a group of us were all going to meet up and only he and I showed... we spent the evening drinking vodka and cranberry and laughing about the madness involved in keeping the friends that we keep... I had vacationed with these friends (you know the type, the ones that have to do everything en-masse and as prescribed by the most passive-aggressive member of the party) and convinced Wolf to come along. Thereafter he and I vacationed sans drama and with some other friends from Chicago... on these long trips we came up with a few games...

The first was: Jewish Mother - Protestant Mother... This game has certain rules, foremost is that you must always respect your opponent's mother. With that said, one's own mother is fair game and the competition is to simply prove that your own mother is more adept at doling out guilt, neurosis, over-care etc than your opponent's mother. We are pretty evenly matched.

The second game is: Axis... In this game one must demonstrate, beyond any doubt, that they are the Axis and that the world does (in fact) revolve around them. Wolf is a master of this game and has been playing it longer than we have been friends, but has perfected his strategy in our time together - holding his left index finger stationary he says "this is me" he then orbits his right index finger around it saying "this is the world... it's just that simple"... When he gets there, I know I'm beaten.

The last game is: Pet the dog - pet the owner... a very fun game to play when on vacation because people always have dogs... it's played like this. As a dog and owner approach one player calls out "Dog" or "Owner". Then you engage in conversation and the person who ended up with dog has to pet the dog and the person who ended up with owner has to (somehow) pet the owner... of course, either player can beg out of the competition depending on just how ferocious the dog is and the body odor of the owner. I have to admit that Wolf has been a fierce competitor; we've met some nasty dogs and some seedy owners...

Ok, so they're not games that Milton Bradley could market, but you get to a point where you know your friends just so well that one word or two will engage them in what can become a hilarious interchange...